Wednesday, January 31, 2007

One way to embrace the evildoers would be simply "to act as if their sin was not there", as John Milbank has suggested in Theology and Social Theory. Jesus on the cross would then be our model. Like him we would say of the perpetrators, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing". In an act of sheer grace, justice and truth would be suspended, and reconciling embrace take place. We seriously misconstrue forgiveness, however, if we understand it as acting "as if sin was not there". More significantly , whereas the suspension of truth in an act of forgiveness is meant to help create a new world, a world without deception and injustice. Suspend justice and truth, and you cannot redeem the world; you must leave it as it is. Acting "as if not" in the face of sin might indeed anticipate heaven in which there will be no sin, as Milbank argues. However, the price of such anticipation is abandonment of the world to the darkness of hell; the world will remain forever awry, and the blood of the innocent will eternally cry out to heaven. There can be no redemption unless the truth about the world is told and justice is done. To treat sin as if it were not there, when in fact it is there, amounts to living as if the world was redeemed when in fact it is not. The claim to redemption has degenerated into an empty ideology, and a dangerous one at that.Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, p. 294.

I haven't read all of the Milbank book yet (and reading the first hundred pages makes me wonder how many who applaud it actually has), but this criticism of Volf's seem to me to be very apt. I wonder if this is in fact the major division line within modern theology, oh sorry, that is post-modern: between those who feel the gospel should work towards to redemption of the world and those that don't.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Here are the most important works in recent theology as voted by the theo-blogosphere. About 50 people participated in the survey, which was made in January 2007. For more about the process see these posts.

As I said when starting this project, I want to make this list into a source for info on these works, so now I invite those of you that have written something on these works - reviews, comments and so on - on you blogs to list such post in a comment to this post. I will move these links into the original post, so they will be easy to find. I won't be too strict when deciding what goes on the list, but it has to be a little bit more than just a quotation.

A lot of works came in on a shared sixteenth place: Borg, Childs, Cavanaugh, Hart, Newbigin, Ratzinger, Vanhoozer, Williams and Wright all got five votes each. Six votes thus seemed a good place to draw the line.

I for one will do my best to read all the works on this list that I haven't read (the majority of them). It seems like a really good way to expand one's knowing on the current theological climate (in the English-speaking world, one should add).

The list shows commendable ecclesiastic width, and about half of the works are by writers that do not have English as first language. It sadly male-heavy, though, Johnson being the only woman to make the list. There were a number of other female theologians on the long list, but none of them got more than two votes. But then I don't think there were more than two female voters...

I also asked you which one work you find to be the most important. Many decided not to name one such work, but it is still interesting to see that these votes gave quite a different result:

A big thank you to all the people who participated in the creation of this list, and since I'm sure theology giants like these also google their name every now and then, my congratulations to all the writers who made the list.

It'll be really interesting to see what kind of a list we'll get in 2012.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Jonny Greenwood posted this Link on the Radiohead website today. It's a (serious) article about solving the earth's energy problems by building solar power stations on the moon and beaming the energy here as microwaves.

I obviously cannot vouch for the solidity of this research, but since Jonny posted it I think we can trust it. :)

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

I will keep the voting open maybe a day or so more, it would be great to have some more votes. It would make it possible to make the final list a little longer without too much random in the lower regions. I feel I can already announce the top three, since these are right now in a class of their own.

1. John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (1985)2. George A Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (1984)3. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theodramatik (completed 1983)

I wonder if an Orthodox theologian could have made it to the top of a list like this even ten years ago. Right now, Zizioluas leads of Lindbeck with two votes, and over von Balthasar with three, so things can still change.

So congratulations to Zizioulas and the others!

And remember, you can still contribute to the list by voting, as well as by linking to bring in more people!

Update: actually, I won't have time to look at this today, so the voting remains open for some time still.

Monday, January 22, 2007

This series is an attempt at applying some aspects of Tillich's theology of art to popular music. The music I have chosen is not particularly indie (what is?), but it sounded good as a title.

In spite of the numerous video-examples, posted lyrical examples and graphics, nothing I have written on this blog has gathered less interest, at least measured in comments... I wonder why this is - maybe the Tillich fans and Indie Rock fans are mutually exclusive groups. :)

It is time to look a bit closer at the kind of experience we have been exploring in this series. I think most people would agree that we experience something extraordinary when listening to some kinds of music, and many would agree that this experience is spiritual in character. The question I want to ask now is, however, if it makes sense to call this experience Christian?

This is a difficult question, and we would have all kinds of methodological issues to deal with if this was done properly. More recent research on mystical experiences has emphasized the importance of the interpretation of the mystical experience as a central aspect of the experience itself. This means that it makes sense to speak of a Christian mysticism where the mystic interprets the experience using Christian language, especially language associated with central Christian doctrines.

Could Christian doctrinal language be used to describe what we experience listen to music?

I think so. First of all, this experience is a experience of creativity, of creation. It is far from rare that musicians, even those that otherwise shun identification with any religion, claim that they cannot explain the process of writing a song, that "the best tunes just appear". Music - as well as other forms of art - is in a way a celebration of this experience of creation. I think this notion is related to the religious idea of creation on several levels, as I have argued elsewhere.

Secondly, the experience we have when listening to this kind of music is relational. Music is about communication, and the magic, if you forgive my casual use of the word, happens in the contact between the performer and the listener. Music is never about listening to a thing, a product - it is about listening to a person who is giving something to you.

Thirdly, the experience is one of meaningfulness. When listening to something that grabs you deeply you experience that this is something that is of the highest importance, it concerns who you are on a very fundamental level

Music is an incarnational experience. I have a home-made theory about music being the source for the original concept of a bodyless existence, because music does seem to have an existence that is not tied to matter: a melody exists even if no one is at the moment singing it, even if no recording of it is made, even if it has not been written out. However, unless the music becomes flesh - in the performer and the listener - there is no experience. Does this not point towards the mystery of the Incarnation of Christ?

These ideas should not be taken as expositions of the Christian doctrine. I just want to show how Christian language can be applied to the experience we are dealing with here.

Why, then, is this important? Why have I bothered to work out this theology at all? Well, for two reasons primarily. First, as someone who loves music, and someone who understands myself as a Christian I want these to aspects of my life to be in unity. I want to be able to express why Radiohead means so much to me, without creating an inner conflict in me.

The second reason is that I see an tendency in modern theology to make religion this separate compartment in the world - a neat post-modern haven with its own rules and reality, without any connection to the lives of a wider public. I think Tillich's theology is needed to counter this.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Man, this is fun! About fourty people have voted so far, and right now, three title share the top spot, and these three seem to be pulling away from the rest. I won't tell you which titles these are, it would affect the result of the vote.

Right now, the votes indicate that about ten titles seem to be more popular than the rest. But the more votes we have coming in, the more titles will pull ahead, so we can make the list a bit longer. I'd like the final version of of the list to have 20-25 titles on it, so keep spreading the word that the vote is open!

Friday, January 19, 2007

The problem is that we have artificially inflated our needs to include cheap transport, easy energy, comfort and inordinate and ever-expanding wealth. And so the primary theological 'solution' to Peak Oil is thankfulness, which is the key to contentment. Listen to the Apostle Paul: I have learned to be content with whatever I have.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Ok, here is the list we will no vote on. Using the form below you can vote for as many of these titles you like (ok, if you vote for more than, say, 20 titles it is already a bit silly). Of course, you may vote only once. Asking for name and e-mail is only for the purpose of making it at least a little bit harder to cheat. I won't spam you.

My thanks to everyone who has participated so far! It has been fun, the meme, though not a perfect tool for gathering data, proved to be a lot fun - many people wrote small essays on theology in the last 25 years, well worth reading. If your nominations do not appear, I am sorry, I must have missed them (except in the case you nominated Dan Brown. That I ignored).

James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981)

Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theodramatik (completed 1983)

Carl Bangs, 'Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation' (1985)

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the eyewitnesses: the Gospels as eyewitness testimony (2006)

Oswald Bayer, Living by Faith - Justification and Sanctification

Kwame Bediako: Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of Non-Western Religion

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

In such a catholic outlook the entire problem of the relationship of the Church to the world receives a different perspective. The separation and juxtaposition of the two can have no essential meaning because there is no point where the limits of the Church can be objectively and finally drawn. There is a constant interrelation between the Church and the world, the world being God's creation and never ceasing to belong to Him and the Church being the community which through the descent of the Holy Spirit transcends in herself the world and offers it to God in the eucharist.John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 162.

This bold statement seems to point in the same direction as my thoughts in this post.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

After arriving at one title per writer these are the 108 titles on the list. If there are any comments that you want to make, you still have on day before I will finalize the list and start the voting. I would especially appreciate it if titles that do not fit the timeframe (1981-2006) are pointed out. Also, I someone notes a title that is missing, it is still possible to add it.

James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981)

Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Dramatik (completed 1983)

Carl Bangs, 'Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation' (1985)

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the eyewitnesses: the Gospels as eyewitness testimony (2006)

Oswald Bayer: Living by Faith - Justification and Sanctification

Kwame Bediako: Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of Non-Western Religion

Monday, January 15, 2007

As explained here, some of the writers that have been nominated for inclusion on the list of the best contemporary theological works have been nominated with more than one title. For fairness, we will now vote on which work by these writers will be nominated. I will have the polls open as long as I feel is need, maybe a day or two.

The meme continues to live its own life (it has already mutated quite a bit). As long as the preliminary voting is going on I will add titles to the list. (If another title is added by a writer who is already nominated, I will, however, discard it. Too complicated otherwise...)

While the deification view may at first glance appear to take sin and evil less seriously than the atonement view, it actually takes them more seriously. It views them not simply as individual failings for which human beings need forgiveness, but rather as all the forces - individual, systematic, institutional - that thwart the flourishing of God's creation. "Sin" is not mainly or only a personal problem, the solution for which is divine forgiveness. Rather, sin is living a lie, living contrary to the way the christic lens tells us is God's desire for all of us. "Evil", in this understanding, is to collective term for the ancient, intricate and pervasive networks of false living that have accumulated during human history.Sallie McFague, Life Abundant, p. 185-186.

I think this understanding of sin and its relation to salvation has a lot of potential. McFague is here not actually dealing with sin in particular, and maybe it should be worked out a bit more. But I think a reading of the eastern fathers, for whom deification was the obvious way to understand salvation, would prove that McFague's interpretation is sound. They tend to use the tricky term "nature" to describe what is corrupted, but it would certainly be wrong to reduce this term to biology as we perhaps tend to do. History certainly place a great part in creating human nature.

The presupposition of such literalism is that God is a being, acting in time and space, dwelling in a special place, affecting the course of events and being affected by them like any other being in the universe. Literalism deprives God of his ultimacy and, religiously speaking, of his majesty. It draws him down to the level of that which is not ultimate, the finite and conditional.

I think what is interesting about Tillich's criticism of literalism is that it is profoundly religious. He is not criticising literalism primarily because it turns religion into something that has to be accepted against better knowledge, but because it is bad theology. It deprives God of his otherness.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Paul Tillich developed his theology of art, that I have applied to rock, partly in order to address the notion that art had to have a clearly religious content to be considered religious (see this post.) This can the be applied to music as well.

I'm under the impression that the commercial success of "Contemporary Christian Music" peaked a few years ago. I could be wrong, I am completely disinterested in this kind of music. Still, much of this kind of "Christian music" for me seems to be completely irreligious in character. If we use Tillich's scheme, this kind of music, while having a religious Inhalt, it is not Gehalt-oriented, but oriented towards form. There seems to be a will to create a Christian alternative to whatever is playing on the radio. This means that the attitude that Tillich considers particularly religious is lacking: Form does not serve the Gehalt but is itself the focus.

Of course, it would be absurd to state that a religious Inhalt makes it impossible to consider a piece of music truly religious. And I am sure we can find plenty of examples of music where the lyrics religious in content, and where the deeper Gehalt dictates the form of the song. (One example, though definitely not CCR, is Brompton Oratory by Nick Cave - incidently also a proof that you can make music on those cheap Casio Keyboards, as this Youtube clip shows...) The point is, and this is what is important: if you limit yourself to only opening yourself up to art and music with a Christian Inhalt, you are likely to miss out on much of true spiritual value.

In the final part of this series I will offer some final thoughts on the nature of this experience, and suggest that this kind of theology can actually be very important in our time.

The Nominations keep coming in (117 at the latest count). A potential problem has occurred to me.

My plan was to have the vote happen so that everyone can vote for as many titles as she or he wants to (maybe a maximum of 20 or so). The problem is that several writers have more than one work nominated. This could lead to several problems, either that a writer looses out because votes are split between several works, or than one writer gets to much attention because of several titles in the list.

This problem could be solved in a few ways. On possibility is a pre-vote where the we vote on which title of these writes will go on the official list we vote on.

Another way would be to say that one writer can only have one title on the final list, so the title with the most votes will go on even if another title would have more votes than a different title by another writer.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Just a quick note to tell you that I know have 107 titles on my list. However, only 14 of those have received more than one nomination, so it will be very interesting to see what will happen when we start voting.

I will close the nominations on Monday evening, and post the entire list of nomination, with instruction on how we will go about voting for the titles that will go on the final list.

In conventional theology Jesus Christ takes the sins of the entire world - past, present and future - upon himself. Through his sacrificial death he achieves forgiveness for all sins; through his resurrection we are assured of eternal life. Since Jesus Christ is "fully God and fully human", the second person of the trinity, according to the orthodox position he can accomplish redemption: as God he has the power to do so and as man he stands for and includes all human beings in his saving death and life-giving resurrection. ....Personally, I have never been able to believe it.Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 157-158.

Almost had you going there, eh? According to McFague this is a theology that today, for North-American Middle-class Christians, is "not believeable and bad theology". It does not correspond to today's understanding of reality. This kind of theology, she says, puts the "offense of Christ in the wrong place", that is, it makes faith about a conflict with science rather than with a conflict with a sinful way of life.

It is bad theology only from our particular perspective of course. It is bad because in this kind of Christology "Jesus does it all". It does not engage us in creation, it does not motivate us to get involved in the "project in which we join God in Christ to help all creature's flourish".

Thursday, January 11, 2007

A day has passed since the meme was set loose and so far (about) 20 people have responded. Keep passing the word by tagging, the list will only be better the more people get involved. If you want to know how the meme spreads, you can follow it here.

The list so far looks like this:

James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Was dürfen wir hoffnen? (?)

Carl Bangs, 'Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation' (1985)

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the eyewitnesses: the Gospels as eyewitness testimony (2006)

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Name three (or more) theological works from the last 25 years (1981-2006) that you consider important and worthy to be included on a list of the most important works of theology of that last 25 years (in no particular order).

Ok, its time for a bit of fun now. My request for tips on great contemporary books on theology got me thinking... Wouldn't it be great if we had a kind of canon on great new theology, that would reflect not the ideas of a single person, or a group of people, but the international community of theologians? I think this could be done without to much trouble and it could even be a bit of fun.

So here's what I thought we could do. I'll do the compiling here at God in a Shrinking Universe. The titles will be picked in two steps. First a nomination round; and then among these nominations, we will vote on which titles make it to the final list.

I think the best way to do the nominations is by creating a meme. I will do that in a separate post. The I will compile the results of that meme and among the titles that get a certain amounts of votes (I'll have to decide on the exact number when I see to what degree this picks up), I will compile the list of titles that participate in the final vote.

The reason I want to do it in two steps is that I think that it can be difficult to remember all books that are important when you chose from the top of your head, and with a list in front of you, you may chose somewhat differently. Also, it is more exciting. When I have the list of nominees that we will vote on, I will also ask for links to reviews on the various works (I'm sure many of you have such reviews in you blogs), and make it not only a list of good books, but also a list of more info on them.

So while spreading the meme, you can refer to this post for an explanation of what we are doing. By linking to this post, it will be easier for me to track the meme, but I should be able to find it also with search engines.

I won't be too strict when it comes what titles qualify, but let's focus on theology (not biblical exegesis, historical studies and so on - unless these are of special theological interest!). I'll let popular consensus decide. But the titles have to have been first published in the last 25 years, that is, from 1981 to 2006. (If it is published last week that will be ok too, but I doubt enough people will have had time to read it.)

If you do not have a blog of your own, you can give you nomination in a comment to this post.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Note how the best "our" Iraqi government's officials could do by way of reply was to order an "enquiry" to find out how mobile phones were taken into the execution room - not to identify the creatures who bawled abuse at Saddam Hussein in his last moments. How very Blairite of the al-Maliki government to search for the snitches rather than the criminals who abused their power.

We need, then, first of all to reconceive ourselves. We need to think differently about who we are. The eighteenth-century individual, isolated from other people except through contracts and from nature except as the resource base from which to amass wealth, is false according to the picture of reality current in our time. The postmodern picture sees us as part and parcel of the earth, not only as dependent on it and its processes but since we are high on the food chain, as radically dependent. ... We are simply not who the reigning economic model says we are, so says our current story. We may be greedy, but more basically, we are needy, terribly needy.Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 102.

This book as actually rather brilliant. So far, McFague has given an analysis of the current economic model and how it is unable to provide humans with true fulfilment, and how it is responsible for the sorry state of planet earth. Even if I am not sure about the use of that term postmodern (is there anything this word cannot mean??!?) I think she is very right in saying that those that advocate free-market capitalism today are living in yesterdays world. Too bad they still hold the power.

I really look forward to the theological chapters that make up the second half of this book.

Monday, January 08, 2007

So what are the problems with this approach to the religious or spiritual dimension in music? Well, first and foremost, and this may also be considered a strength depending on you point of view: it presents an objective criterion to religious music, while most people spontaneously would feel that what constitutes a spiritual experience in music is something extremely subjective.

However, it seems to me that this criterion is not really objective, it is rather to be understood as a more specific way of saying 'to me this song is spiritual'. It says goes a bit further than merely stating a subjective feeling, it describes why I have this feeling. The interpretive element is not removed completely: what specific pieces of music that is considered Gehalt-oriented is not something 100% objective. So one could claim that Tillich's approach gives a way of avoiding both the 100% objective approach (a kind of ex opere operato notion of religious music) and a 100% subjective approach (Which of course turns religion into a part of the individual, and removes the ultimate aspect completely).

Another problem with this approach is that it does not seem to fit all kinds of music as well. I chose these example because even though they are very different they all share the same basic aesthetics: It is the kind of music where melody, sound and harmonies are important but there is also a notion that these cannot be made into a goal in themselves.

If I however took this same mode of analysis, and looked at for example an artist such as Bob Dylan, I would not really get any results. Now it is undeniable that many feel that Dylan is very spiritual (in parts), yet - it has to be said - melody, sound and chords rarely seem very important to him. For him, the Form of the music is almost irrelevant. However, it may be possible to treat these kinds of artists (see also Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen etc.) by focusing more on the lyrics themselves, and apply the Gehalt-form scale to just the lyrics, and maybe to the way the artist performs them.

Another similar comment is that there seems to be something very existential in the mere performance of music. Could this be another area where these tools could be used? How about instrumental music?

I will in another post (this series just keeps growing), address the question of so called Christian music, and then finally address why I actually feel this is important. Until then, go back to the previous parts and check out all those youTube clips once more!

Let us look at this rather unattractive suggestion more carefully. It is unattractive because it is not like other liberation theologies. Other liberation theologies arise from the cries of the oppressed; but we are not oppressed. This theology will not liberate North Americans from chains of oppression (except, of course, the chains of consumerism!); rather, it implies that we are the oppressors and must, if we are Christians, liberate others from our domination. That is, a liberation theology for us North American Christians should be based on a cruciform lifestyle, expressing and embodying a way of life that will be liberating to others.Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 34.

First, I have to note that see anything in this paragraph that does not apply to North Europeans as well as Americans. It is perhaps a matter of difference in scale, certainly not in attitude.

Second, I think that even if I agree in general notion that a contextual theology for the Western World should be primarily about liberating the others (bringing freedom to the Middle East, for example, should primarily be about giving them freedom from us), there are some problems with this notion as well. On the one hand I think consumerism is only one of the things we actually need to be liberated. We need to be liberated from our belief in that our leaders are basically morally good and want what's best for us. We need to be liberated from the notion that competition in any area of life produces the best results (it brings out the alternative that is best at competing, nothing else), among other things. So even if the end result is the same, a western liberation theology should also be about liberating us, not only the others.

But a more difficult problem is that notion that the purpose of a western liberation theology is to liberate others risk falling in line with the age-old western belief that it is our purpose to help (read: civilize, Christianize, democratize... colonize), the rest of the world. There is an inherent belief in the supremacy of the White man contained in it. Of course this is not what McFague is intending, but it is still worth noting that liberation must come from within, not from without.

(Yes I chose this book (thanks, Chris!), but I still will chose one more, probably Hart...)

Thursday, January 04, 2007

I'm about to chose the very last book I need to exclude in my studies for my Ph.D, and I would like some tips on what that book should be.

It should be:

fairly recent (post 1980-ish)

immensely important, a future classic

deal with systematic theology

between 200 and 300 pages

I prefer originality to the kind of book that claims to offer the final version or overview of some ancient debate

It would be nice it the book in question would function as a kind of introduction to some area I'm not familiar with, so here's you chance to fill out those glaring blanks you have noticed in my postings.

So, what is the most important theological work of the last few decades then?

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

In the last part in this series I used the examples of Muse and The Smiths to illustrate how Paul Tillich's system of classifying art can be used to find the religious aspect in rock music. Now I will give to more examples, and finally get to the kind of music that, according to me and Tillich, is actually communicating something of that depth dimension in reality we commonly call God.

But first we have to look at some music that fits in the upper left corner of Tillich's diagram. This is music subjective in attitude and form oriented. Well, there is a lot of stuff that would fit in this sector. Take this clip of the Strokes for example. What is going on here? A couple of guys are standing around looking cool as f**k. The singer, looking cool, sings something about his life, but he is not really trying to say anything much, it's more about finding words that fit the kind of sound they are creating. Oh, and his foot must really hurt after kicking that mike-stand. To call this religious would be blasphemy. I won't say it's without merit, that guitar does sound nice, and its a good tune. But depth, no.

Most "Next big thing" type of artists tend to fit neatly into this category. It seems to me it is the most secular of all the categories in the diagram, and I have to confess, these types of bands rarely interest me much. Yes, good for parties and such, but not really for listening.

So then, what would be typical of a band with objective attitude that is gehalt-oriented? First of all lyrics would deal with the existential situation of man. It would be considered insufficient to describe the personal life of the lyricist or some fictional person in a way that connects with the listener. Attempts would be made to grasp something universal, something that is beyond the particular. There would be a tendency to break up the linear narrative of lyrics and create more fragmented pieces of images that together point to something beyond.

Further, the whole song would be created around this centre of the song that is created by the lyric, so that sounds, arrangements and instrumental parts would support and deepen the experience that is presented.

You have to forgive me for taking my favourite band as an example but it is really the best one I can think of. This has been the nature of most Radiohead songs from OK Computer onwards. Take Pyramid song off Amnesiac:

I jumped in the river and what did I see?Black-eyed angels swam with meA moon full of stars and astral carsAll the things I used to seeAll my lovers were there with meAll my past and futuresAnd we all went to heaven in a little row boatThere was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

This lyric is quite simple, just eight lines of text. The imagery is quite abstract: It suggests some kind of experience, maybe a dream or a vision, where the "I" of the song is experiencing something about our existence, the notion that in some way all the love we experience in life stays with us and that because of this there is 'nothing to fear and nothing to doubt'.

But the lyrics is just the starting point. The music adds so much to it. (If you haven't heard this song, I suggest that you do not watch the video yet, just listen to the music first) Those piano chords with that weird rhythm, those noises in the background that suggest a vast space around the subject of the song. It is all describing man's situation in the face of this faceless threat called death. Then the drums enter making the rhythm even more complex, adding to the feeling of existential commotion. In the middle of it all there arises this triumphant courage in the face of death, leading to this feeling calmness and trust at the end of the song.

To me this song says more about human existence, death and redemption than thousands of pages of top class theology. The experience of listening to this song is beyond the emotional, and the ego of the singer is completely irrelevant. By listening to this song something very fundamental in my being is moved, and this is an experience I wouldn't hesitate to call religious.

This is obviously not saying anything about the supposed religiosity of Thom Yorke and the other members of Radiohead (they have never said much positive about (organized) religion, with the exception of Buddhism). What I am saying is that this song (and there are many other songs that could be mentioned) can be interpreted as religious (or spiritual) in a very genuine way.

So here we have the diagram again, with my four examples placed in their respective sectors.

In the final part of this series I will address some of the problems of this system, and address why this may actually be a very significant and relevant line of theology.